SPEAKING TRUTHS
By Dayna HesteriUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Dayna Hester
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-1436-0Chapter One
It had been three days since I showed up to English class. I hated school. I never fit in. Everyone stared at me like they're better than me. Maybe they were; I don't know. The kids were getting their folders out of their backpacks, which I forgot to bring. I leaned over to the cheerleader chick next to me to ask for a pencil, but that's when the teacher, Mr. Sanders, walked up with a slip of paper. "Landon, I'm sorry, but the office needs to see you." He put the paper in front of me on my desk. He was lying. It didn't say to go to the office. It was a hall pass to go see the guidance counselor.
"That's messed up. What the hell?" I bashed my fist against the desk.
Sanders leaned into me like what he had to say was just between us. "If you want to talk about it, let's go outside." There was a time when I thought he was cool. It was the first day of school. I learned on the second day that he was just another nerdy prick with leather loafers and khakis. That wasn't my style. My style was baggy jeans and a hoodie pulled down over my I-don't-give-a-fuck green eyes.
I looked around the class. Everyone was staring at me. Frozen. Mouths open with their jawbones unhinged. I had been in school with most of the kids since eighth grade because the hellhole village I lived in was so small that they crammed middle school and high school into the same building. I pulled my hoodie back to look Mr. Sanders in the eye. "No way. I came to class to fix things. You said I could make up my missed work."
"Go to the office and see if they'll help you, Landon. It's not up to me anymore." He was just looking for excuses. He wanted me out of his class.
The stupid, "Yes, Mommy and Daddy" kids just sat there with their blank faces like they'd never done anything wrong, especially the fat-ass slob who sat behind me. I turned my head to look at him. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing." He jerked his head back so quick it made his double chin double again in size. I wanted to make a stupid joke, but then I got pissed off even more when I saw him look up, over my head, to Mr. Sanders. It was a coward move, like he needed a savior or something. That's what you found in Nebraska: cowards.
The more I looked around at everyone, the more I started thinking about how I knew they talked about me when I wasn't in class. I could tell I was gonna lose my cool, and I didn't care. I was sick of how they all thought they were so much better than me. When my eyes came back to the fat kid behind me, he was still looking up at the teacher. I leaned into him and dropped my voice. "Does your dad know what a coward you are?" That's when I felt Mr. Sanders's creepy pedophile hand grip my shoulder. "Landon, please. Don't disrupt the class."
I turned around. His bushy unibrow was right in my face. I jerked my shoulder away. "Get your hands off me. I'm done with this shit anyway." I tried to stand but my leg hit the desktop. It's not like I'm super-tall: barely six feet. I lost my balance and almost fell to the ground. That's when the pig-snout kid snickered like he's all that. My anger exploded. All I remember is flipping my desk over, grabbing a book, and ripping the pages out.
Why can't people understand me?
Next thing I knew, I was waiting for the guidance counselor's door to open. I stared at the crack at the bottom hoping to see when someone was walking toward the door to open it. The waiting thing was getting to me, though. It was giving me too much time to think. I started freaking myself out, thinking what Bob would do if he found out about my school screwup. I had been unplugging the phone between six and eight o'clock every night when the school computer would call to say I had missed classes. Bob never asked about school or my grades, but if he found out I was in the guidance counselor's office ...
My stomach started cramping. I couldn't stop pumping my foot up and down. I kept zipping and unzipping my hoodie, obsessing over how bad I needed to fix the mess I was in. The door opened. "Landon?"
I nodded. "Yeah," I murmured and threw in a smile. I'm sure it didn't look natural. I knew I was screwed.
"Come in." She held the door open like she was inviting a guest, and her I-want-to-help smile was as fake as her penciled-in eyebrows.
I stood. "Oh, thanks." I made my way past her.
Her room looked stupid, cluttered with "Teacher of the Year" fake apples and college pamphlet posters. The walls were plastered with thank-you cards from last year's graduating losers. I avoided the beat-up couch in the corner where I knew all the spoiled kids sat at lunchtime, talking about whose daddy would be spending the most on college tuition. I felt my anger creeping up, so I grabbed one of the wooden apples off her desk and started gripping it. I had to focus on getting my ass out of there without Bob finding out.
I saw her look down at my knuckles, turning white from squeezing the apple so hard. The red paint was chipping off onto my sweaty hands. She didn't say anything, though. I'm sure that's because my English teacher called in, telling her about how I threw my desk and shit. She probably didn't want me to blow up and start throwing stuff around in her little castle.
She cleared her throat. "Landon, do you know why you're here?"
I kinda wanted to have some fun and say, "To fill out my college applications?" but something told me sarcasm wasn't the right route. Instead, I lowered my voice and pulled back my hoodie. "Yeah. I've missed too many of my classes."
"You've missed twelve out of thirty school days, and your teachers are reporting that you haven't made any attempts to make up missed assignments."
"I don't know, I just—I mean, school's not for me, you know."
"But being in school is the law."
I came so close to telling tell her I don't give a fuck about the law—I never met an honest cop—but I bit my tongue. "Yeah, that's what my dad was saying."
"Your dad knows about your school situation?"
"I told him last night. I thought that when I got the note to come in here it was because my dad already talked to you." I was feeding her bullshit, but I knew it was what she wanted to hear. School people love to think you have parents who care.
"No, I haven't heard from your dad."
I shook my head. "Well, I know he's calling today to talk to you guys. He's pretty worried about my situation and stuff, you know." I had to choke back a laugh. Bob didn't give a damn about school. He only sent me because a truancy officer busted him for not having me enrolled.
"The only option for you to graduate with your class is if your father enrolls you in a continuation school. That will allow you to make up the credits that you need to graduate."
"So when can I come back to school?"
"If you make up the credits for the core classes—math, English, history—and then take summer school for the other credits, you can re-enroll in September for your senior year. You'll be able to graduate on stage and participate in the senior activities." She ended her speech with a smile, like she was offering an incentive to get my act together. I wanted to roll my eyes, but instead I said, "That's cool." She didn't know who she was talking to. I couldn't have cared less about the stupid senior stuff. They acted like that crap was for all the students, but I knew better than to think that I was really invited.
I don't belong.
I saw kids outside her window so I knew the final bell had rung. I realized then she had probably watched me walk by her window cutting class a thousand times yet had never bothered to come out and ask me what was going on. Of course now that her paycheck was on the line and she had to do the job she's paid for, she acted like she cared about my future. The whole school thing was just such a load of bullshit. If it weren't for Bob, I would have been doing my own thing.
She continued. "Landon, does your dad pick you up from school or do you take the bus?"
I almost gagged on my spit. The thought of Bob driving up to the school in his junky van was hilarious. "No, I usually take the bus. But, you know, he might be picking me up because he wants to talk to you guys."
"Well, if he does, have him come see me. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying to get a hold of him over the phone."
"Yeah, okay. I'll tell him." I couldn't believe she could be that stupid. To her credit, though, she was used to dealing with the goody-goody kids, you know. That's just not how Bob and I rolled.
"I'm sorry about this, Landon, but these are the rules."
"Oh, no, it's cool. You got to do what you got to do, right?"
"I wish you luck, and hopefully, we'll see you next year."
"I'm sure you will."
As soon as I got the sign that it was okay to leave, I was out the door. My mind started spinning about what I had to do next. My plan was to unplug the phone in the bedroom. Then I'd let the battery drain on the cordless phone and put a piece of clear tape over the metal part so it wouldn't charge in the cradle. The next morning, I'd leave like I was going to school. But most importantly, I'd make sure Bob had a twelve-pack in the fridge when he got home from work.
I didn't go back to my locker. Didn't matter; I forgot the combination on the third day of school. Anyway, I wanted to leave everything about me behind. In a weird way, it was that thought that made me calm inside and brought me the confidence to know that I'd figure it all out.
Chapter Two
It was my job to clean the trailer before Bob got home. Our trailer was small, like if you had to hitch it up to a truck and take off, you could do it in an hour or so. We couldn't do that, though, because Bob took the wheels off a couple of years earlier and jacked it up on cement blocks. And also, the trees around the trailer were overgrown so much that you couldn't see it when you first drove onto the property. We were stuck.
It usually only took me about fifteen minutes to clean out the ashtrays, pick up the beer cans, make our bed, and clear the counter in the bathroom. The kitchen trashcan, though, always filled up quick with the throwaway plastic trays from our microwave meals. Looking at the dried-up food scraps from the night before reminded that because I didn't have school, I'd have to figure out how I was gonna eat lunch. I didn't have to worry about that before because I was on the free-lunch program. Honestly, that's why I stayed at school most days: to eat.
I started obsessing about how the stupid-ass school pissed me off. I mean, I was there every day, and I always planned on going to my classes. It's just that I'd stop by the metal shop to smoke a bowl with Sam and the guys. I could've gone to class high, but I didn't think the teachers would find it cool. So instead, I'd wait for my buzz to wear off, get my free lunch, and go to afternoon classes. If the school didn't screw around and put the class schedules on rotation, starting every day with a different first period, I would have only been dropped from my first and second classes, and Sam said he had connections to get me enrolled in the double-period metal shop. That way, I could have kept up my credits. It all would have worked fine if the school hadn't ruined it. God, I hate them.
I also hated taking the trash out. I talked Bob into letting us get one of those big trashcans for the kitchen that you put in front of the house so I didn't have to empty it all the time. Of course there it was, spilling over with shit. What else could go wrong?
I looked at the clock. I knew Bob would be home in about an hour, so I clasped the lid on the trashcan, dragged it outta the kitchen, across our dirty living room carpet, out the trailer door, and down the plywood steps. Funny, it sounds like a long way, but it was really only like fifteen feet. What was a long-ass way, though, was that I had to haul the trashcan up to the main house on the property to empty it.
One time, when we first moved into the trailer, I tried balancing the trashcan on my skateboard and pushing it up to the main house, but it fell over on me. There were maggots crawling all over the food scraps. I puked inside the can before I got the courage to pick all the shit up. I learned from that mistake to just latch the lid and drag it.
The lady who owned the property, Evelyn Barker, let Bob and me move in when she hired Bob to be a ranch hand for her dairy farm. But then, like two years after that, I guess the dairy farm went bankrupt or something, and she got rid of all the cows and illegal workers. The place was deserted for a long time until she had someone plant corn. Bob still did some small repairs and stuff for her on the weekends if he didn't have a plumbing job. I'm sure that's why she let us stay in our shit-hole.
I got the trashcan emptied and put back in the kitchen. That's when I figured everything was ready for Bob, but I was never positive about that. I had this checklist in my mind of the stuff I had to do before he would get home, but even though I would run through the checklist in my mind, I would also have to actually go ... look ... and make sure I did it. I'm stupid that way. Sometimes I'll think I got everything done and then remember, "Oh, shit, I didn't do that." And I knew I couldn't afford to set Bob off with all the school crap going on.
When I was sure everything was done, I decided to kick back for a while, have a cigarette, and listen to this iPod that Sam gave me that morning. I was sure he had jacked it from this rich snob in fourth grade who had moved in down the street from him. He gave it to me without the charger and it had downloaded Disney Channel songs. I didn't care, though. I just thought it was cool to feel the headphones in my ears, like everyone else walking around with iPods.
I finished my cigarette and went to throw the butt outside. That's when I caught sight of Bob's headlights flashing through the tree openings. The driveway onto the property was about a quarter of a mile long. Just long enough to let my gut tighten and tangle up at the first sign of Bob's headlights. It was the suspense: you never knew what kind of mood he'd be in.
I decided to hide the iPod behind the television because Bob didn't always react too good to new stuff. I bent down to hide it, and when I stood up, my head knocked against the gun rack. The gun on the bottom almost fell out, but I caught it.
Bob had the biggest hunting rifle collection you ever saw. That's how he made extra cash, refurbishing rifles. Some were basic refurbs, like the wood needed to be sanded and re-stained. Or like one time some guy gave Bob a Burnside Breech-Loading rifle from the Civil War to restore. It was all rusty and dinged up when we picked it up from the post office. It took Bob three months to fully refurbish it; I got to help. On the weekends, we drove all over to get the parts. When it was done, the guy wanted Bob to send it back in the mail, but Bob said the gun was too special to do that. We drove twelve hours to hand-deliver it. It was a beauty. I always knew Bob was in a good mood when he started up a conversation with, "Remember the Burnside refurb, Landon?"
I heard the engine power down; the headlights dimmed to nothing. My eyes were glued to the gun rack, making sure I got everything back in place. I counted to three as I really stared at the rifles, making sure they were all in their place. I needed our evening to go right.
I could hear his footsteps. Bob wore these black work boots that crunched over the leaves as he walked up to the front door. That was actually my favorite thing about autumn: the leaves covering the ground made it so I could hear Bob coming. One thing you don't want is to have Bob sneak up on you. I've had it happen before—not good.
The metal trailer front door flew open. "Hey, kid."
"Hey, Dad."
"Grab me a beer."
"You got it." I bolted for the refrigerator.
He turned around in the doorway and sat on the threshold facing outside so he could take off his work boots. His hunched-over chest filled the space of the open door. Like, even if I wanted to, or had the courage to, I couldn't have stepped around him to get outside. And it wasn't that his chest was pumped up with muscles, either. It was more like he was a big guy and made bigger from his twelve-pack-a-day habit.
Once he got off his boots, he placed them on a paper grocery bag by the refrigerator just inside the front door. Bob always said his boots were too muddy to wear in our filthy house, which made me laugh to myself. Nothing was too dirty for our trailer.
I slammed the fridge door, popped the lid on his first beer, and held it out so it would be the first thing he grabbed when he shut the door behind him. The sound of his first gulp told me the evening would go smoothly.
Chapter Three
I never went to sleep before Bob. I hated it, though, when Bob would fall asleep in his recliner, because I didn't know if he was asleep for good, or if he'd get up and make us go to bed.
Together. It was always a toss-up—unless it was a heavy drinking night, which meant we would stay wherever he had his last drink.
Whenever we did sleep in the living room, I basically never fell into a heavy sleep. My dreams were always about regular life stuff. That's probably another reason I missed so many classes, but I would never try to tell Bob that. And it wasn't his fault, anyway, that I didn't sleep right. I was just too tall to fit on the small trailer couch.
That night was for sure a recliner chair night. Bob started in with shots of Jack Daniel's right after dinner, and soon he was laid out flat, snoring, with the television blaring. I started to settle in on the couch but remembered about the iPod I hid. I got up quietly to get it from behind the television, and that's when I saw my friend Sam standing outside our trailer. He was jumping up and down to get my attention.
Sam was the only person I'd ever had over to my house. The only reason I felt comfortable with him is because his home life was worse than mine. His mom had some kind of pain illness, so she popped Vicodin all day. She never knew where Sam was and stayed in bed except for when it was the first of the month. That's when her food stamps came, and she needed to sober up enough to sell them for cash so she could buy cigarettes and beer. Sam's dad was worse off. He was doing life in prison over in Lincoln. He had been gone since Sam was ten. The summer before, he wrote Sam and said that it would be better if Sam stopped having contact with him. Sam said it was no big deal because he only heard from him like twice a year. I didn't think it was cool, though. It made me so upset that I actually asked Bob how a dad could do that. He said, "Out of sight, out of mind." I didn't think that was the best explanation, but it made sense. And I guess Sam's dad felt that what was best for his son was to force him to go find another father.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from SPEAKING TRUTHSby Dayna Hester Copyright © 2010 by Dayna Hester. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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